The Bottom
In Sula’s setting, much attention is spent on describing the Bottom. Interestingly, we first hear about the planned demolition projects for the Bottom, which tells us that despite whatever events and history the neighborhood holds, it’ll soon fall to man’s need for the new development. The next aspect of the Bottom that’s described is its demographic composition—it’s a neighborhood of African Americans, segregated from their fellow white Americans by location, culture, and economics. Finally, we are told the Bottom’s origin story, and how it came to be that a place tucked up in the hills above a valley town got the oxymoronic name “the Bottom.” Inherent to the Bottom’s creation story is the deception of African Americans by white landowners, which illustrates a common theme of the times: it was often difficult for African Americans to get honest or equitable treatment from white America.
Plum’s Death
During Plum’s death, Morrison references two powerful events to evoke the deeply personal and spiritual atmosphere of the moment that Eva murders her son to save him. The first image is that of baptism, where a priest purifies the person being baptized, and promises them to a life of obedience to God. As Plum floats in the world between being asleep and awake, he feels as if his mother is baptizing him with a wet light, when in actuality she’s dousing him in kerosene. Still, the image of Eva baptizing Plum stays with us, because in a way she is purifying her son and ridding him of the demons and sins he acquired while away at war.
The other event Morrison references in connection to Plum’s death is birth. When we hear Eva’s recollection of the night she killed Plum, we learn that Plum’s behavior leading up to his death reminded Eva of when she gave birth to him. To Eva, it seemed like Plum wanted “to crawl back in [her] womb…[but] there wasn’t space for him in [her] womb” (Morrison 91). Without a place to keep and protect Plum, she did what she believed was right and murdered him. That was the only way she could return Plum from where he came.
The Hottest Day
The day that Hannah asks Eva why she killed Plum is the hottest day anyone in Medallion can remember. Morrison uses a series of repetition sentences beginning with “a day so hot” to illustrate for the reader just how hot this day is. Following the phrase “a day so hot,” is a myriad of uncharacteristic and bizarre happenings. For example, the day is so hot that flies sleep and cats “splayed their fur like quills” (Morrison 92). Some of the phrases are even hyperbolic, such as husbands eating food that their wives filled with glass. This all emphasizes just how hot Medallion is.
War
Morrison uses some everyday and mundane but also some grisly and graphic images of war to explain how and why Shadrack returned from World War I so emotionally and psychologically scarred. Some of these images, like “the bite of a nail is [Shadrack’s] boot,” are familiar and intended to connect to the reader’s own experiences. If the reader has ever had a pebble or nail stuck in their shoe, they will understand the irritation Shadrack experienced in the middle of the battlefield. Other images, like the face of a soldier flying off, and his body continuing to run without its head, are unfamiliar and intended to shock the reader. In this way, war is made both familiar to us and distant from us.
